Psycho #1

Brendon Lynch provides a strong cover for this first issue of Psycho, dated January 1971.

First is "The Skin and Bones Syndrome" by Roger Ellson (story) and Gray Morrow (art). A mysterious beam starts appearing on Earth, causing anyone it touches to immediately turn to a skeleton and die. While the Earth's scientists try to figure out what is going on, a young man named Jimmy sends out a radio signal into space and it successfully reaches the planet Aranus, who is sending out the signal. The inhabitants of Aranus are horribly disfigured, due to a mysterious plague that arose from a space probe. Realizing that the signal they are sending is causing death on Earth, they decide to blow up their entire planet! Wow, it was surprising to see a race of alien beings willing to off themselves like that to save Earth. It was good to see Warren regular Gray Morrow here.

Second is "The Glistening Death", drawn by Martin Nodell and Vince Alascia. Warren Arno gets in trouble in the city and heads to the swamp lands where his reclusive uncle Robert lives. Robert warns him to leave, saying there is an unknown terror out in the swamp, but Warren doesn't believe him. That night a blob-like creature comes in through the window but flees when Warren wakes. The next day a beautiful woman comes to see Robert and Warren follows her into the swamp, soon coming upon the creature again. He returns to his uncle's home where he finds he has been hoarding gold and kills him. Suddenly the woman appears again, and reveals that she is the swamp creature and had given Robert gold in exchange for bringing her red meat, essentially making him her slave. With Robert dead, she takes on Warren as her new slave. This is a decent story but the reproduction of the art, at least in the copy I'm reading is quite horrendous making everything quite dark.

The next story is "I Painted Only Terror!". An artist, Paul Beaumont only paints one subject, people that look scared or terrified. His doctor tries to get him to paint other things to stop some nightmares he's having, but Paul instead decides to paint one supreme masterpiece to obtain worldly fame. He recruits a model, then gets into a monster costume to scare her, but it ends up frightening her to death. Soon, her ghost starts appearing, urging him to paint. Eventually Paul's apartment is broken into by the police after his rantings make his housekeeper think he's gone out of his mind. Inside they find Paul dead, and his painting completed, showing him terrified.

Following this story is a one page feature, "Psycho's Gruesome Gallery No. 1", showing a monster coming out of a mirror, as drawn by Steve Hickman.

Incidentally enough, the fourth story is "The Thing in the Mirror" drawn by Everett Raymond Kinstler. James Crawford is an orphan brought up by a wealthy family who grows up mean and cruel. At the age of 25, James becomes obsessed with a woman named Barbara, who is marrying an older man, George. James goes to work for George and causes him to get electrocuted in what he makes look like an accident. Soon James starts seeing strange visions of a monster in the mirror. Eventually, George's ghost appears and transforms James into the small, monkey-like monster he had been seeing in the mirror. In this new form, James wonders out of the mansion he lives in, is captured and becomes part of a freakshow! I enjoyed the ending to this story quite a lot.

Next is the text story "The Steps in the Cellar!" by Art Stampler. A man named Pete Welch finds an abandoned home in a storm. Looking for alcohol, he dismisses a warning message in front of a door and heads down to the cellar. He finds an old woman in the cellar and continues past her, making his way to a chamber with men chanting and where a woman is sacrificed to summon a green scaly monster. The old woman, who is named Mother Satan decides to keep him alive as a witness. Pete is able to use a wine bottle given to him to kill Mother Satan, but fails to kill the fetus Asmodeus she was carrying, lord of the Netherworld. A baby, Asmodeus is found by a couple and adopted.

Fifth is "...And Then There's Cicero" written by Gardner Fox and drawn by Paul Reinman. Ben Slick goes to stay with his elderly aunt Hildy, who has numerous cats, including one named Cicero who she says never seems to be around. While she's asleep, Ben searches the house for her fortune. Seeing a key around her neck, Ben is convinced it leads to her fortune and throws Hildy down the stairs so he can take it. He opens the locked door with the key, only to discover that Cicero is a tiger, who promptly eats him! The start of this story is quite similar to "The Glistening Death", but it does end in a new direction.

Next is "Anatomical Monster" with art by A.C. Hollingsworth. A medical student named Jack Kirk, while shopping for something for his girlfriend is instead given an anatomical chart of a human body by a shopkeeper. Jack gives the chart to his professor who uses it in teaching. However that night the image in the chart comes alive and stalks the city, soon killing a couple. Jack confronts the shopkeeper, who reveals how the chart came to be. As a young man, he was jealous of his colleague Bill and killed him. He drew the chart, basing it on Bill, but soon found that he came to life and started killing people. Back in the present, to destroy the monster, Jack and the shopkeeper burn the chart, but realize it is now blank. The monster comes from the darkness and kills the two of them.

Our next story is "The Hands of Death", drawn by Norman Nodel and Vince Alascia. Eric Dulan, a world famous violinist has his hands mangled in an accident. Devastated over the fact that he can no longer play the piano, Dulan resorts to black magic, finding a man named Dr. Necros who claims he can give him new hands in exchange for "everything". Dulan is able to pick a new pair of hands from a group of dead men. He returns to his career as a violinist, but finds the hands on their own trying to kill someone. He locks himself away, only to kill his friend when he finds him. Dulan goes on the run but is caught by the police. Fingerprinting him, they find it to be the hands of a previously convicted killer and lock him up. Dulan screams for Necros to take back the hands as the dead mock him.

The issue concludes with "The Gruesome Faces of Mr. Cliff!", written by Len Wein and drawn by Mario Acquaviva. Noel Cliff is a once great actor, known for playing monsters in various plays. Now he is an old man, suffering from pain and told he has an incurable disease. Cliff decides that he wants to return to playing the monsters as one final performance, but upon putting on the costume of one of them, becomes the monster itself and kills someone. Cliff starts putting on different costumes, becoming said monsters and killing more people. When a woman at a bar taunts him, he dons the costume of Dracula and kills her, but is chased by the police. Running onto a stage with bright lamps, he finds he has truly become a vampire and dies from the light.

This is another issue dominated by reprints, with only "The Skin and Bone Syndrome", "...And Then There's Cicero" and "The Gruesome Faces of Mr. Cliff" (as well as the text story and one page Gallery feature) being new. The rest are reprints of 1950s stories. That said, I did enjoy this issue a bit more than Nightmare #1.

Nightmare #1

The cover to this issue, dated December 1970, is by Brendan Lynch. The art and script for these stories are uncredited; those I have listed below I obtained from Richard Arndt's book "Horror Comics in Black and White".

We begin with the cover story, "The Pollution Monsters" with art by Don Heck/Mike Esposito and story by Mike Friedrich. Bikers Butch, Annie and Sunny sell 'the soul of the nation' to an old man offering them a fuel that is far more powerful than regular gasoline. They use it on their motorcycles and ride off. The old man is quickly revealed to be the devil. As they ride, the fumes from the motorcycle creates giant pollution monsters that run amok. The rest of the story is these monsters on the attack. They eventually seize the three main characters and turn them into pollution monsters as well. This two-part story is quite the flop to kick off the start of my Skywald coverage, a rather pointless and silly tale.

Second is "Master of the Dead!", drawn by Norman Nodell and Vince Alascia. Pierre Jarnac is obsessed with trying to raise the dead and lead them under his command, causing his own brother to have him committed. Pierre fakes things long enough for them to let him out on good behavior then finds a job as a caretaker at a graveyard where he renews his obsession and experiments. Finding no success, he calls out to the dead to rise for their own sake, and they do so! Yet when his brother arrives and Pierre starts calling out to the dead to kill those who mean them no harm, the dead turn on him and stomp him to death.

In "Dance Macabre" drawn by Bill Everett, a couple, Jack and Daisy Blake are dancers on the island of Morando. After being fired, they come up with a voodoo-themed dance of the restful dead, thinking it will be over the top and make them famous. It does, and they get more and more well known but start seeing visions of the dead claiming they will be punished. This causes the two to grow apart and eventually hate each other. Jack tries to strangle Daisy, but she pulls out a knife and the two end up killing each other.

In "Orgy of Blood" by Ross Andru/Mike Esposito (story and art), a man named Phillips meets a woman at a bar that he takes to her home only to discover she is a vampire when she chains him to the bed and drinks his blood. Phillips wakes, revealing it to all be a dream and sees his psychiatrist who hopes that a prescription will solve things. Phillips dreams intensify however. The vampire woman first brings her daughter with her, and in a later dream brings her mother too and they all feast on him. Phillips is told only a sanatorium can help him but when the nurse arrives and looks quite familiar, Phillips realizes that the psychiatrist visits were all a dream, and getting bitten by the vampires was the reality. A rather silly tale, I found it funny just how further and further over the top it was getting as the vampire brought more members of her family to feast on Phillips.

Next we have the one page "Nightmare Pin-Up" drawn by BIll Everett. This is a one page illustration of a Grave Ghoul digging what else, a grave. The one page of art without a story is something Warren also commonly had done for many years, so this is quite in line with what I'm used to.

The three page "The Skeletons of Doom" is a text story by Art Stampler, featuring a young woman named Myra whose research into ancient pharaohs gets her seized by a group of underground skeleton men who worship Isis who has power through a giant diamond. When a fellow captive Alan (who for some bizarre reason suddenly is called Rich for much of the climax) damages the diamond, they are able to escape to safety. Bill Everett provides a few images for this story.

"Help Us to Die!" features a man named Jim Torrence who is obsessed with Egypt. While at the museum with his wife Mary, he spots a newly discovered mummy, who he sees opening and closing its eyes. Jim thinks if they steal the mummy they could be world famous and even find the secret to eternal life. That night they steal the mummy and bring it to a cave in the hills. The mummy is revealed to be alive after all and they help it remove its bandages, revealing an old man with a small canister with him. Jim reads on the canister to drink it for eternal life, and that only those of royal lineage may partake of it. The mummy gets angry causing Jim to attack it and smash its head against the rocks until it seemingly dies. Jim and Mary then drink from the canister, only to find that while the vial provides eternal life, it doesn't provide eternal youth. We see the years quickly go by and they become withered and aged, hoping for someone to find them and help them die. A rather silly story, Jim reads a warning on the canister, yet promptly ignores it and soon he and his wife discover eternal life isn't as great as they thought it to be.

Next is "The Thing from the Sea". The original art for this story was by Wally Wood but Mike Esposito has also amended the artwork A man named Smithers gets into a gambling argument with a colleague named Murray while working as crew members on a ship. Smithers throws Murray, presumably to his death. But Murray soon rises back to life and starts his long walk back to the shore. Smithers arrives on land and meets Murray's fiance, eventually getting into a relationship with her and asking her to marry him. But just then Murray's rotted, bloated corpse arrives. It grabs a hold of Smithers and brings him into the sea with him until they both sink under the water. The ending of this story is extremely similar to the story "Scared to Death" from Tales from the Crypt #24, which incidentally enough was also drawn by Wally Wood.

Our following story is a mere 3 pages, "The Creature Within". Playwright Nathan Foxx dreams of a horrifying vampire-like creature. This inspires him to write a play, which quickly sells out due to his good reputation. However the night of the performance the monster appears to attack the lead actress, and the lead actor is soon killed as well. Foxx is told they were bitten by some kind of animal and wonders if it was the creature from his dreams. All of a sudden the creature appears out of nowhere and kills him. This story was super rushed, but it was also so predictable it was good to get it over with quickly. The play in the story seems somewhat inspired by The Phantom of the Opera and the lead actor's name is a reference to the star of the movie, Lon Chaney.

The issue concludes with "The Deadly Mark of the Beast!" with art by Syd Shores/Tom Palmer and story by Len Wein. A werewolf has been ravaging the countryside. A man named Collins is convinced that a newcomer to the village, Blake is the werewolf because he's seen walking around at night with his hound. But when Blake is revealed to be blind, people dismiss Collins' claim and leave. When Collins' wife is killed, he becomes enraged, taking Blake at gunpoint at his home and saying they'll wait til the full moon. When Blake grows agitated at the full moon, Collins guns him down. But Blake's hound suddenly reveals that it is a wereman and kills Collins! The ending to this story was quite hilarious and is similar to a comedic episode of The X-Files from a few years back during its short lived resurrection.

Overall a rather mediocre issue to kick things off with. A lot of the issue (Master of the Dead!, Dance Macabre, Help Us to Die, The Thing from the Sea! and The Creature Within!) are reprints from various 1950s horror comics.

A New Beginning... Skywald

I am excited to announce a new initiative on this blog, a covering of the complete works of Skywald.

The foremost competitor to Warren, Skywald started publishing black and white horror magazines in 1970, and stood for Sol BrodSKY (the original editor) and Israel & Herschal WALDman (the publishers). While their initial issues included a number of reworked old stories from 1950s horror comics, Skywald soon broke into completely new material with each issue and their magazines initially come off quite similar to Warren, even featuring several of the same artists (ex. Tom Sutton, Ernie Colon, Bruce Jones, going under pseudonyms). In 1972, Brodsky departs the company, resulting in his assistant, Al Hewetson (a former Warren contributor) becoming editor. Hewetson immediately sets forth on developing a very unique style, which he calls "The Horror Mood" and Skywald's magazines soon editorially became quite unique and different from what Warren was publishing. Skywald would eventually become dominated by Spanish artists from Selecionnes Illustrada, much as what occurred at Warren, although it is for the most part a completely different set of artists (aside from the occasional who had some Warren work such as Ramon Torrents, Zesar Lopez and Jesus Suso Rego). Skywald would eventually go under in late 1974, due to Marvel flooding the market with their own black and white magazines. By that point they had put out around 60-65 or so issues of their three flagship titles, Nightmare, Psycho and Scream.

For many years I've heard about Skywald but have always had a difficult time obtaining any issues as they are considerably harder to find (and hence more expensive) than Warren magazines. That said, a company called Gwandanaland has recently gone about reprinting the entire Skywald library, finally giving me the opportunity to read for them for the first time. I have heard that the best way to approach Skywald is to read their magazines in chronological order, so that is what I plan to do here. While I can't guarantee the speed of output I had when I covered all the Warren magazines so many years back, I am hoping I can get at least one blog post out a week.

2 New Publications on Warren's Spanish Artists

The last week has been a very fortunate one for Warren fans, or at the very least fans of the Spanish artists who dominated the Warren magazines in the 1970's as we have seen not one, but two different publications issued on them. It seemed a fitting time to make my first post at this blog in almost two years.

First we have "Masters of Spanish Comic Book Art" by David Roach. Roach should be well known to any current fan of Warren, as not only being a co-author of the Warren Companion, but also being responsible for several Vampirella books from the character's current publisher, Dynamite, including a book focused on the covers of the Warren years and a book focused on principal Vampirella artist Jose Gonzalez. Roach by all accounts is the pre-eminent English speaking expert on these artists and its great to see more work from him on this subject.

First and foremost, it should be said that this is not really a book about Warren Publishing, but rather the Spanish comic artist community that Warren's magazines primarily brought to the American comic fan's eye in the 70's and 80's. The book provides a detailed history of Spanish comic book artists, starting from the beginnings of comics in the early 1900's, and taking us through matters such as the Spanish art agencies that developed, their role in British romance and war comics and other countries throughout Europe before their eventual arrival to the United States. In fact the chapter on their role at Warren is pretty brief, a mere 3 pages long. The narrative continues beyond the Warren years throughout the 80's and to the present day.

This book is primarily an art book; of its 270 pages approximately 50 provide a history for the Spanish comic artist community and the remaining 200+ is focused on providing an art gallery for a wide variety of the artists, just over 75 in fact. 18 of the artists have a written feature on them, while for the remaining ones we are just treated to samples of their art. These artists focused on mediums other than just comics, and that is made clear here as the art samples are not simply interior comic book pages but also a wide variety of paintings and book covers. The written features cover most of the well-known artists who worked for Warren, including Esteban Maroto, Jose Gonzalez, Luis Garcia, Manuel Sanjulian, Enrich Torres, Jose Ortiz, Luis Bermejo, Jose Bea, Rafeal Auraleon and Fernando Fernandez. I was happy to see pretty much all of my favorites with write ups. We also get write ups for Victor de la Fuente (who had only 1 original Warren story, but numerous reprinted stories in his Haxtur and Haggarth series in the late years of Eerie), several artists who had only 1 story or cover for Warren (Alfonso Font, Jordi Longaron, Jordi Bernet, Jose Miralles) and a couple of artists who to my knowledge never did anything for Warren, Angel Badia Camps and Manfred Sommer.

Learning of other Spanish artists beyond just those who worked for Warren was a highlight of the book for me, there are artists here like Enric Sio (featured a lot in my coverage of Dracula), Marika, Joan Boix and others who I'd love to learn more about now. But it’s not just that, getting to see a lot of other work from artists I'm already familiar with is a great benefit and hopefully a great starting point in discovering more of these artist's works.

Ultimately, this book leaves me wanting more, but then I want to learn so much more about these artists that any book was probably going to leave me feeling that way. Having write ups for more artists would have been great, particularly for ones with large bodies of work at Warren such as Ramon Torrents, Isidre Mones, Martin Salvador and Leopold Sanchez. There are many artists who only have a single page of their work featured and more would have been appreciated (Mones in particular, as well as Zesar Lopez, who while never that prolific at Warren was an artist I really enjoyed). The vast majority of the Spanish artists that provided work for Warren are featured, although there are a few notables missing such as Jaime Brocal Remohi, Pepe Moreno Casares and Jose Gual. A few less notable artists that did some work for Warren that are also missing include Jorge Galvez, Jesus Suso Rego and Rubio.

In the overall scheme of things though, these are longings from an obsessed fan who wants to learn as much about these artists as possible. I totally understand that there are editorial and length restraints and think that the author in almost all cases has made the correct choices about what to include and what not to include. This is a great book for any fan of these artists and highly recommended by me.

(note: You can also read a modified version of this review that I have posted on Amazon for this book)


Next we a special edition of Illustrators Magazine, titled "Warren Magazines - The Spanish Artists". I'm not too familiar with this magazine, but upon discovering that they were working on this issue around 6 months or so ago I quickly put in a pre-order for this. This magazine is principally written by Diego Cordoba. I first came across Cordoba over at Amazon.com where he has written numerous detailed reviews on the Creepy, Eerie and Vampirella archives being published by Dark Horse and Dynamite. Having worked with Josep Toutain and Seleccionnes Illustrada, there's hardly anyone out there who can bring the personal knowledge and expertise that Cordoba brings to the table on this subject. David Roach also has some contributions here.

Unlike Roach's book, which provides small glimpses at numerous artists, this publication instead provides detailed focus on a much smaller amount of artists. After an initial feature on Josep Toutain, it provides articles on Enrich Torres, Manual Sanjulian, Jose Gonzalez, Esteban Maroto, Luis Garcia and Jordi Bernet. Each article is around 20-30 pages long with numerous examples of artwork from each artist. While there are examples of their Warren art here, we have a lot of other stuff showcased as well. For example, for Enrich, we have approximately 40 pieces of art of his that I had never seen before. The publication also features some behind the scene pictures, some examples directly from the original artwork themselves, and even an excerpt from a never published Warren story drawn by Jose Ortiz. Where Masters of Spanish Comic Book art leaves you wanting more, this publication provides a lot more depth and satisfaction for each artist, granted a much smaller number.

Hopefully this publication ends up being a good seller, as I'd love to see Cordoba produce a second or even third edition focusing on additional artists. You can buy the issue here: http://bookpalace.com/acatalog/info_ILLUSTRATORSSPA.html

Dracula 12

At last we come to the final issue of Dracula. Enric Sio provides his sole cover for the publication with this issue, and its quite a good one. One of the scarier looking covers we've had over the 12 issue run.

We begin with Wolff in "The Beginning of the End" by Esteban Maroto. A woman from Wolff's tribe named Lenora stands before the witches of Ginza, begging to be killed so she can have peace. Khet-Ahm had warned them of Wolff's coming, and he soon arrives, seeking to avenge his wife. Hearing the cry of Lenora he rushes forward and battles the witches, who are largely decayed. After defeating them Lenora tells him she will bring him to the swamp where he will find the body of his wife Bruma. She brings Wolff to Bruma's body. Lenora asks Wolff to let her come with him and that there may be others out there who have survived. Wolff heads off with her. A rather anti-climatic end to Wolff's story, with the witches being very easily defeated by Wolff. Much of Wolff's storyline has been rather dreary in mood and this story is no different, with Bruma being dead. Overall Wolff was a shaky series at times, but Esteban Maroto's good art always made up for it. His Dax (aka Manly) series that would appear in Eerie is a good place to turn to if one is looking for another series that is similar in tone, while also superior in quality.

Next is "Waiting". The story is uncredited, but from what I've looked into online appears to have been drawn by Manuel Lopez Blanco. A man reads a story about the success of a colleague of his, Hermann Von Schilling, who has recently been appointed chancellor. The man complains to his butler Otto about how he has been forgotten amonst those in his plane squadron (from what appears to be World War I). He considered himself an elite pilot and is upset about how Schilling has obtained this honor. He wonders where those men who used to cheer him and the women who used to fight for his attention have gone. As the story ends he is shown to be horrifically scarred and burned. He proclaims he will wait and once again be called for by his country. A  rather odd story with no supernatural elements to it, a rarity for this publication.

Next is "The Curse" by Jose Bea. The story features a monkey named Chri-Hari, who is the traveling companion of a great samurai named Tanaka. Tanaka ravages the temple of Ochigo, leaving only a blind beggar alive. The begger proclaims that Tanaka will die that day at noon and is quickly killed by Tanaka because of it. Tanaka heads to an attic where he thinks no one will be able to find him, such that noon will pass without him dying. Tanaka thinks of how Chri-Hiri is his good luck charm. It ends up being Chri-Hiri who ends up being Tanaka's doom though as he stabs him from behind with his sword.

Dracula concludes with "Marian" by Enric Sio. A woman lays before her mirror and criticizes her grand-daughter Marian, who thinks her clothes are old fashioned and has no respect for her. She wonders why Marian has been playing around the family vault and the setting is shown to be in an old cathedral. The woman calls for Marian to come to her and the girl screams as the story ends. My best guess at this story is that the lead character has been dead the entire time and leads her granddaughter to her death. She looks too young to be a grandmother though. Like several previous stories by Sio it is hard at times to make much sense of what is going on although the art is quite nice.

Overall this final issue is a bit of a disappointment, with none of the four stories here being at the level of some of the stories we have had here in the past. Still, outside of "Waiting", we have some fairly strong art here and this is probably my favorite cover of the 12 issue run. Looking at the entire 12-issue run, I think Dracula acts as a good preview to the work that we'll see from Esteban Maroto, Jose Bea and Enrich Torres throughout their long runs at Warren. Bea in particular provides some truly scary and bizarre moments throughout. The Agar-Agar series was unfortunately always a big waste of time. Enric Sio is the highlight though and the main reason to try and track these down. While his stories don't always make the most sense, he's got some really strong art throughout all 12 issues. It's a shame he never did any work for Warren as I think he would have fit in well.

Dracula 11

Esteban Maroto provides the cover for this issue of Dracula, featuring Wolff fighting an ape-like creature. Unlike the previous Wolff cover, this one has nothing to do with the story inside (and Wolff's hair color is wrong).

The issue begins with Wolff in "The Lair of the Witches" by Esteban Maroto. Wolff heads towards Ghamada, the coast of corpses. Wolff heads inside a castle there, finding the sorcerer Khet-ahm. Khet-ahm summons his master, Sa-Ghot. Wolff comes across a girl Jehane, the companion of Sa-Ghot and warns her to be quiet. Wolff follows her thorugh the castle and then she embraces and kisses him. Khet-ahm as does Sa-Ghot, revealed to be a giant horned creature. Sa-Ghot crushes Jehane in its hands and throws her aside. Wolff attacks it and calling upon the power of Nadira, daughter of Jupiter destroys it. Khet-ahm dies, but warns the witches that Wolff is coming. The absense of Katarina from this story, or her father makes it come off as if we've skipped an issue. This story seems more similar in tone to the earlier stories in this series. With only one issue left, it will be interesting to see how they wrap up this storyline.

No Sir Leo this issue, rather Jose Bea provides us a stand-alone story, "A Story of The Stars". A man looks at the stars each night and ignores 2 friends who head out in their car. He notices a metal star appear in the sky and fly off. The man finds his friends gone, but their car still around. As he touches the car, a bizarre, blob/octopus-like alien arrives and starts absorbing him. The alien says they have taken his friends into the stars, a place far better than they have known and will do the same to him as well. The man and his friends are never seen again, but three new stars appear in the night sky. A story with some very bizarre artwork, this is quite good and reminds me of the story "The Other Side of Heaven" from Vampirella 28.

Next is "Over the Rainbow" by Alberto Solsona, the final story in the Agar-Agar series. Now back on Xanadu, Agar-Agar is told she has neglected her mission to find a new place that those of Xanadu could move to. Agar-Agar returns to the blue prince (last seen in issue 8) and he fights a seven headed dragon, killing off evil with each head he cuts off. The prince returns to her and she realizes this place would be perfect for her people to come to. Agar-Agar remains with the prince and they talk of the children they may have some day. This series comes to a very abrupt and lackluster end. Throughout Dracula's entire run this series has been the big weak point and that doesn't change with this final segment.

The story concludes with "Again Highway 61" by Enric Sio. An accident has occurred at the intersection of Highway 61 and Route 84. There are 2 survivovrs being transported in an ambulance. The narrative then changes to some people mourning the death of a woman named Claudette. The group wants to take her to a place named Lourdes; to get there they need to go across the highway. They carry her coffin and head across the highway, causing a large accident. Like with many of Sio's stories, the narrative here is a bit confusing at times. I am guessing that the ending of the story is telling how the accident at the beginning took place.

Dracula 9

Esteban Maroto once again provides a pen and ink cover for this issue of Dracula, featuring Wolff taking on an enemy while a woman watches.

As usual Wolff opens up the issue in "The Return of Sadya" by Esteban Maroto. Katerina is captured by Sadya, the torturer for the witches of Ginza. Katerina is taken away by winged creatures to Sadya's stronghold. Katerina's father believes Wolff is their only hope, and works on casting a spell on him so he will awaken. Wolff appears at Katerina's cell, but he is in fact a monster, the Polingur, a hideous spined creature. Polingur carries the unconscious Katerina to Sayda. Katerina's father continues his spell on Wolff. At Sadya's stronghold, the Polingur dies and Wolff appears. Wolff carries Katerina off to safety while harpies kill Sadya.

Next is Sir Leo in "The Mark of Death" by Jose Bea. Sir Leo is told of bizarre screechings that have occurred in the garden of a women named Miss Elizabeth. These have also been accompanied by murders, and the mark of a gigantic bird like creature. Sir Leo meets with Elizabeth, who looks like a normal young woman. He believes that the murders have been committed by a giant bird creature, like a Moa, but such creatures have been extinct for centuries. Leo decides to stand guard in the garden that night and is attacked by bird-like claws. He fires his gun and kills the creature, who is revealed to be Miss Elizabeth, with bird-like legs. A simpler Sir Leo story than usual, but another fairly good one.

Next is Agar-Agar in "The Martian Visitors" by Alberto Solsona. Fred Barber and his girlfriend Constanza tell Agar-Agar that Xanadu has been invaded by strange beings from outer space. Agar-Agar makes her way back there, finding the capital deserted and the city covered by weeds and vines. A martian takes her captive and brings her to his flying saucer. The martians keep saying the same thing, to reach for the skies or she'll be blasted full of holes. Agar-Agar realizes that the martians receive TV signals and are basing their words on that. She causes the TV signals to go away and the martians go away. Agar-Agar is greeted by her remaining sprites as the story ends. Yet another lackluster story, but at least the designs on the martians was interesting and a bit darker than the usual fare for this series.

The issue wraps up with "The Face" by Enric Sio. A model, Pamela, has many pictures of her taken. The photoshoot over, she heads home. When the photographer, Frank, starts developing the photos however, he finds a strange occurrence, that her face and body appears completely blank in all of them. The only thing that appears is the clothing that she is wearing. He and his colleague find the photographs still interesting and believe it will work, but still wonder what is going on. Frank calls up Pamela saying it will be a hit, but it is revealed that her entire face and body have gone blank in real life as well. A strange, but rather non-scary feature from Sio this time.